A weekend of Romneyisms....

This is going to be a quick posting, highlighting some of the latest news stories I've seen on Mittens--all are still going badly for the GOP presidential candidate. 

The first big story was the Friday afternoon news dump of Mitt Romney publishing his 2011 tax return.  Yes, Mittens is only showing the American people his tax return for last year, while demanding his vice presidential running mate, Paul Ryan, hand over 10 years of his tax returns to the Romney campaign, and Mitt Romney handed over 23 years of tax returns to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign to be vetted for the vice presidential nomination.  There were some interesting scrutinizing over Romney's tax returns--like the fact that Romney apparently "overpaid" his taxes, boosting his effective tax rate from 9 percent to 14 percent.  Had Romney taken all the deductions he was legally entitled to, his effective tax rate would have been 9 percent.  Instead, Romney padded his 2011 tax return with more taxes.  As Steve Benen said:

But that would have proven politically problematic, so purely for show, he deliberately overpaid the IRS, in order to increase his tax rate, on purpose. Romney was in the rather extraordinary position of selecting his own preferred tax rate, and then working backwards from there.
In other words, Romney chose to under-deduct and overpay his tax bill because he's running for office for Pete's sake. That's not my argument; that's the Romney campaign's argument.

Mitt's Romneyism for purposely overpaying his taxes was, "I don't pay more than are legally due and frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don't think I'd be qualified to become president."

There is also the small matter of Mitt Romney presenting a doctor's note, summarizing his tax liability for a 20-year period from 1990 to 2009.  This summary shows Romney paid a lowest annual federal tax rate of 13.66 percent, while Romney donated an average of 13.45 percent of their income to charity.  Of course, Mittens does not provide any income information, investments, tax shelters, or any sort of data to support his doctor's note.  Not to mention that some tax experts are saying that Romney "could still deduct the unclaimed amount of his charitable donations in future tax years."  So if Mittens loses this election, he could still take his 2011 deductions after the election, and still see his tax rate drop down to 9 percent.

Of course, our next Romneyism is that for Mittens, it is only fair that he is taxed at a lower rate, while the rest of the country pays more.  From 60 Minutes, via Americablog:

(PELLEY) Now you made, on your investments, personally, about $20 million last year. And you paid 14% in federal taxes. That's the capital gains rate. Is that fair to the guy who makes $50,000 and paid a higher rate than you did?

(ROMNEY) It is a low rate. And one of the reasons why the capital gains tax rate is lower is because capital has already been taxed once at the corporate level, as high as 35%.

( PELLEY) So you think it is fair.

(ROMNEY) Yeah, I-- I think it's the right way to encourage economic growth-- to get people to invest, to start businesses, to put people to work.

Only the little people pay taxes, eh Mittens?

Our third Romneyism is again on taxes.  This time, Mittens ended up listing U.S.A as a foreign country on his 2011 tax return.  So if Mitt Romney is running for President of the U.S.A, then why is he listing the U.S.A as a foreign country on his U.S.A 2011 tax return?

Our fourth Romneyism is not about taxes, but about how happy Mittens is about being extremely wealthy and famous.  From YouTube:



Let me type out this quote:

"I used to think that becoming rich and becoming famous would make me happy. Boy was I right."

The comment was made well before Mittens even started running his 2011 presidential campaign, coming from a St. Patrick's Day breakfast, when Romney was still governor of Massachusetts.  Still, the surfacing of this video again shows both an arrogance, and a narcissism that Romney conveys--and he's totally clueless about it, or how reflects on his future political reputation.  Or maybe he just does not care about what the average American little people really think about him--he is entitled to the divine right of kings, and the Oval Office.

Our fifth Romneyism is a rather hypocritical flip-flop.  This story is from CBS 29, Los Angeles, via Americablog:

BEVERLY HILLS (CBS) — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney came to the Golden State for a two-day series of high-profile fundraisers and reportedly took a shot at California in front of a $25,000 a ticket crowd in Del Mar.

Romney “took a pretty big shot at California,” according to a pool reporter.

“He said that under President Obama we’re becoming a lot more European and that the state of California was something he didn’t want to see the rest of the U.S. look like in a few years,” a pool reporter related.

So Mittens Romney has just slammed California for being a socialist, European state, that he did not want to see expand into the rest of the U.S.  Yet  he is happy to collect campaign contributions from those same Californians that he views as "socialist."  Romney took in $6 million from a Beverly Hills, CALIFORNIA fundraiser on Saturday night,  and he visited Hillsborough, CALIFORNIA, for a private fundraiser, where tickets for the event cost between $1,000 and $50,000 per person.  This private fundraiser was also closed to the media.  So Mittens, if you are so angry at California becoming a socialist, European state, why are coming to California with your hat in hand, asking for money from the citizens in that socialist, European state? 


But the biggest Romneyism for this weekend, really came out today.  First, the back story.  On Friday, Ann Romney's aircraft had to make an emergency landing in Colorado, when smoke from an electrical fire started filling the cockpit.  That is a pretty scary emergency, but the plane landed safely and everyone was okay.  Mitt Romney attended a Beverly Hills fundraiser, on Saturday, and was asked to comment on the emergency.   According to the L.A. Times:

Romney’s wife, Ann, was in attendance, and the candidate spoke of the concern he had for her when her plane had to make an emergency landing Friday en route to Santa Monica because of an electrical  malfunction.

“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney said. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she’s safe and sound.”

You can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open?  I don't know why they don't do that.  It's a real problem.  So it's very dangerous.   Uh...Mittens?  Aircraft cabins are pressurized so passengers can breath at high altitudes.  Remember Payne Stewart?  Stewart and five others were killed when their Learjet experienced a gradual loss of cabin pressure, causing everyone to become were incapacitated due to hypoxia, or a lack of oxygen.  The plane flew for four hours, before crashing in South Dakota when the aircraft ran out of fuel.  That is why there are no windows on jet aircraft. 

I'm sure that Mittens is also happy that is wife was safe, after the emergency.  And he is certainly right that there is no place to go, when you have a fire in an aircraft.  But then Mittens goes into stupid in asking why there are no windows on jet aircraft?  And let's not forget that jet is probably traveling at around 500 miles per hour--talk about a nice breeze flowing into the cabin.  This is just a WTF was Mitt Romney thinking of? Of course, Daily Kos has a posting here, and one here showing the responses to Mitten's airplane moment.

But if Mittens needs a visual response:



I swear, this Romney campaign is heading directly into the Twilight Zone....